The present invention relates generally to computer networking and, specifically, to a method and apparatus allowing an intermediate control point to send different sets of filters to various receivers in a multicast network.
Multicast networking protocols enable data transmission from one sender to many receivers on a data network. Multicasting is usually used as an alternative to establishing individual connections between a sender and each receiver, yielding benefits in network bandwidth utilization and the ability to deliver real-time data. Certain conventional systems include receivers that selffilter, translate, or augment their received data. These conventional systems, however, lack flexibility and have no mechanism for sharing particularly useful filters among receivers in the system. They are difficult to update with consistency.